Winners of the 2008 Best iPhone App Ever Awards Announced

[prMac.com] San Francisco, CA - The winners of the 2008 Best App Ever Awards have now been announced in the inaugural competition honoring the best iPhone apps and games released in the iTunes App Store.

"The goal of the awards was to help publicize some applications that people may never have seen. Some of the best apps have never been featured on the iTunes front page or in an iPhone TV ad, yet they deserve recognition and publicity for the great work the developers have done." said Jeff Scott, founder of 148Apps and the Best App Ever Awards.

And it looks like this worked. We heard from many developers of nominated apps that their sales went up once they were nominated. One developer, Portegno Apps, developer of nominee Cartoonize Me, saw sales go up 25% after being nominated.

Sponsored by 148Apps, the voting saw an amazing 98,190 votes cast in the week that voting was open. Voters cast their votes for a variety of iPhone apps in 34 different categories covering applications and games. Categories such as Most Innovative App and Best Productivity Killer were extremely popular with voters.

Winners in each category:

Best App Ever: Shazam by Shazam Entertainment Ltd.

Most Innovative App: Shazam by Shazam Entertainment Ltd.

Most Useful App: Air Sharing by Avatron Software, Inc.

Best Free or Ad Supported App: Stanza by Lexcycle

Best 99 Cent App: Ocarina by Smule

Best iPhone WOW App: Shazam by Shazam Entertainment Ltd.

Best Productivity Enhancer: Things by Cultured Code

Best Productivity Killer: Facebook by Facebook

Best Feel Like A Local App: Now Playing by Cyrus Najmabadi

Best Outdoor Use App: RunKeeper Free by FitnessKeeper, Inc.

Best Musical Instrument App: Ocarina by Smule

Best Social Networking App: Facebook by Facebook

Best Photography App: Pano by Debacle Software

Best Kid Distraction App: iChalky by Eric Metois

Most Creative Use of iPhone Hardware: Ocarina by Smule

Best Use of Location Services: Urbanspoon by Urbanspoon

Most Original User Interface: Weightbot by Tapbots

Best User Interface: Twitterrific by The Iconfactory

Most Innovative Game: Touchgrind by Illusion Labs

Best Original Game: Fieldrunners by Subatomic Studios, LLC

Best Game Port: SimCity by Electronic Arts

Best Casual Game: Labyrinth by Codify AB

Best Long-Play Game: Fieldrunners by Subatomic Studios, LLC

Best Free or Ad Supported Game: Chess With Friends by Newtoy Inc.

Best 99 Cent Game: Moto Chaser by Freeverse, Inc.

Best Game Graphics: Rolando by ngmoco, Inc.

Best Game Controls: Rolando by ngmoco, Inc.

Best Arcade Game: Air Hockey by Acceleroto

Best Puzzle Game: Enigmo by Pangea Software, Inc.

Best Traditional Game: Texas Hold'em by Apple Inc.

Best Racing Game: Cro-Mag Rally by Pangea Software, Inc.

Best Kids Game: JellyCar by Walaber

Best Strategy Game: Fieldrunners by Subatomic Studios, LLC

Best Word Game: Chicktionary by Blockdot, Inc.

The list of winners and nominees is available on the site and also as a PDF and text file. The Best App Ever Awards will return in the fall to help honor the best apps of 2009.

The mission of the Best App Ever Awards is to help recognize the best iPhone applications released to the iTunes App Store in 2008, not just the best selling. Nominees for each category were determined both by nominees submitted on the Best App Ever site and from a nomination committee. The nomination committee is comprised of industry people including bloggers and iPhone app developers. For a list of the members of the nomination committee, see the site. The name for the Best App Ever Awards comes from a friend of the site who would introduce the latest application he downloaded when showing friends as the best app ever.

The mission of 148Apps is getting the word out about the very best in iPhone OS applications through editorial reviews and news. In addition to the reviews and news, 148Apps keeps track of what's currently popular, new, trends, and app prices changes in the iTunes App Store.

"A press release for our second app was written by Chris Hauk and published a few days ago. It is an excellent piece of writing. The press release he wrote for our first app was picked up on by several reviewers, bringing publicity to our app. So we prepaid for him to write our future press releases. Our apps are micro apps and very specialized, so we were not sure what to expect and recognized there might not be much interest. We were pleasantly surprised with the result from the press release. I believe the professional writing made a difference in getting reviewers to look at our app. We look forward to the press release from Chris next month when we launch our first app that will translate menus from another language into English. He is easy to work with and always patient, supportive and positive."